Shrapnel
by Penfreak
Summary: AU. Alphonse waited at the end of the line, feeling as though he were luggage. But now that he and many other children had been evacuated from the cities and industrial areas, all they could do was wait for a stranger to take them in...
1. Prologue

**Disclaimer: **Fullmetal Alchemist is © to Hiromu Arakawa.

**Notes: **This is an alternate universe fic. Keep that in mind. Remember though, that it is not an excuse for shoddy characterisation, so if my characterisation sucks, thwack me one, 'kay?

**Shrapnel: Prologue  
-Kiwi Wolf**

Huddled in an oversized coat, ten-year-old Alphonse Elric stood against the wall of Rizenbul Station, with a tag around his neck and his belongings in a suitcase. Though he was for the most part absorbed in his own worries and concerns, he heard the excited mutterings from the fifty or so other children who he had travelled with, and wondered why he couldn't feel the same excitement.

"I hope I get to stay on a farm!"

"Maybe they'll teach me how to bake bread!"

"I wanna see the cows!"

Occasionally, a person from the village would come up, speak to one of the two schoolteachers who had taken responsibility of them all, and take away one or two of the children. Alphonse wasn't sure what to think of it - he knew that they were all here for their own safety, but hadn't they always been taught not to talk to strangers? He fidgeted with the name tag, uncomfortable. Why couldn't his brother be here?

It was all going slower than Alphonse had anticipated, and it was cold. Even with the thick, weighty coat his father had given to him before he had left their home in Central, he found himself uncontrollably shivering. 'Well, it is raining,' he considered. 'And about half of us have already gone. I wonder how long it'll take for someone to claim me?'

He lifted his head up to look at the clock. Maybe if he watched the minute hand tick by, he could be distracted from the memories of those horrible flying machines that sent bombs down on the city? In the pocket of his coat, he held a piece of shrapnel from the raid everyone believed had killed his brother, Edward. He gripped the metal tightly, before pulling his attention from the clock and back to the floor, glancing back up periodically.

Another fifteen minutes ticked past, and all of the other children had been taken away. 'Maybe there aren't any homes left?' the boy worried, before he sighed and walked up to one of the schoolteachers. "Excuse me," he said, softly. "Is anyone else going to come? Maybe I should go back home to my father."

The teacher shook her head, and reassured him that someone else would arrive for him. She gave him a cucumber sandwich wrapped in foil, and suggested he wait on one of the benches rather than staying stood.

As it had been made several hours ago, the water from the cucumber had caused the sandwich to become soggy, but it wouldn't be polite to reject the food. Alphonse smiled and thanked the lady, before reluctantly going to sit on the bench.

That air raid had been four days ago now, Alphonse contemplated, attempting not to gag on the slimy bread. It had been completely unexpected. Aeroplanes were an entirely new invention from Drachma. True, there had been reports of them, but actually seeing them came as quite a shock.

'I hope Dad's okay…' he thought, giving up on his attempts to eat the sandwich and scrunching the foil up around it. 'He shouldn't have sent me away so soon, he'll be lonely.'

His father's words still echoed in his mind - the way he had told Alphonse that Edward had been caught up in the air raid. He had explained how the library where Edward was studying for a school entrance exam had been one of the worst hit, and how that if he had been in there, he couldn't possibly have survived.

Alphonse had rushed to the site of the bombing, in the hope of finding his brother alive. The sight that greeted him washed away any hopes he had; the buildings had turned to rubble. There were probably many people buried under there, crushed to death. The boy had at first been numbed by the shock, but once that ice-cold feeling drained away, he cried.

That had been nearly a week ago. The city council finally put their plans of evacuating the children into action shortly after the raid, and his father had insisted that he should go too. He had agreed, though admittedly reluctantly, acknowledging that this was for his own safety. If only the evacuation plans had been completed a just a little sooner, Edward would have been with him, stubbornly insisting that he wouldn't be separated from his brother as strangers offered them a home.

Checking to see that the schoolteachers weren't watching him, he tossed the foil-wrapped sandwich into the bin by the bench, and dug his hand into his pocket to once again clutch at the piece of shrapnel he had picked up from the bombing site. Maybe if Edward were here somebody would have taken them home already.

He glanced up at the clock again, before looking to the teachers again. Two new people had arrived. One was a small, elderly woman, and she was accompanied by a girl who appeared to be of his age.

A few words were exchanged between the elderly woman and the two schoolteachers, before he was called over. Had they come to take him in? The woman asked him a few questions before she offered him a room at her house. Al wasn't sure how to respond, but knowing his manners he offered a polite, almost shy 'thank you' and apologised for any trouble he'd cause. The woman, who introduced herself as Pinako Rockbell (though he was to call her 'Granny'), seemed somewhat amused.

Her granddaughter, Winry, seemed to be delighted.

"We just got a puppy!" she exclaimed, excitedly. "He's really cute, you can play with him too if you want! And we have lots of toys and games to play with, you're gonna like it at our house! And I make toys too, want me to show you how?"

She appeared to be an enthusiastic, optimistic girl. Alphonse couldn't help but smile. For the first time in the last week, it hadn't been forced.

* * *

And thus ends the prologue.

So, any thoughts on it? It's my first FMA fic, please _don't _be gentle XD


	2. Chapter 1: Settling In

**Disclaimer: **Fullmetal Alchemist is © to Hiromu Arakawa**  
**

**Notes:** I originally intended to get this out sooner. It was, in fact, _written_ ages ago. Today I figured it was time to edit it. It's not betaed to my complete satisfaction, though I did poke at multiple different people and got crits.

**Shrapnel: Chapter 1  
Settling In**  
**_-Kiwi Wolf _**

_I arrived in Rizenbul safely. Not many people wanted to take me and the other children in. I was the last one there after two hours, and I thought there might not be any homes left. Miss Taylor told me not to worry._

_Mrs Rockbell and her granddaughter Winry came to the station then and said I could stay with them in their house. Mrs Rockbell wants me to call her Granny._

"You're writing a letter already?" Winry asked. Her voice came as quite a surprise to Alphonse, who had completely absorbed himself in his writing. Automatically, his years of having his brother attempting to read his journal entries having trained him, he threw himself across the paper to hide what he'd been writing.

The girl looked absolutely bewildered at the response, and he gave an embarrassed smile and shifted back in the chair. "Only a rough," he said, after a moment. "I asked Mrs… Granny if she had any paper I could use. It's for my father, he should know I'm okay."

The bewilderment faded to make way for mild annoyance. "But Al!" Winry protested, with a whining note to her voice. "You've barely been here an hour, you need to come downstairs and play with Den and me! Write your letter later!"

'_Well, it wouldn't be nice to say no,' _Alphonse thought, as he voiced his agreement._ 'I should try to get to know them anyway, especially since I don't know how long I'm going to be staying here.'_

The girl leaned on the back of the chair, and showed him a little felt mouse, with an apparently removable key half-inserted into its back. "I can show you how to make a clockwork mouse if you want," she suggested. Her face seemed to light up with enthusiasm at the thought, and she grinned. "Den likes chasing them."

"Okay, that sounds fun," Alphonse said, meaning to sound enthusiastic but failing quite miserably.

Winry pouted at this lack of enthusiasm. "Or we could try a frog, but the leaping mechanism's hard for a beginner, and Den's scared of them."

"A mouse is fine," Alphonse assured her, with a smile as he stood up. "Is Granny making dinner? It smells good."

"Yes!" Winry confirmed, putting the toy back in the pocket of her dungarees. "She's making a hotpot, she says it'll be ready in about an hour."

"I think maybe I should talk to her for a minute. Where are you going to be?" Al asked, "so I can find you."

"Living room," Winry beamed. "I'll get all my stuff!" Before Al could say anything, the girl had darted off, presumably to her bedroom. Alphonse shook his head in slight amusement, before heading downstairs and to the kitchen.

Mrs Pinako Rockbell was sat at the table, smoking a long pipe as she read a book. It was true that the dinner, cooking in the oven, smelled delicious. Alphonse stood nervously in the doorway for a moment, before entering the kitchen and approaching the woman at the table.

"Um, excuse me, Granny," he said, quietly.

Granny looked up at him, eyes seeming to sparkle mischievously behind her round glasses in response to his presence. "Is something wrong?" she inquired. "Were you able to finish your letter?" Alphonse shook his head with a gentle laugh.

'_She knew Winry would interrupt,' _he realised with slight amusement. Looking back, he really should have guessed when he had asked for the paper, as there had been a knowing grin on her face when she had given it to him. "No, nothing's wrong,"he answered."I can finish my letter later. I was just wondering if… well, if you wanted any help with cooking."

Granny chuckled. "You don't need to worry about that. It's all made, it just needs time to cook now. And besides, cooking your meals is certainly not a problem."

Alphonse nodded. "But…"

An eyebrow was raised curiously. "But?" the woman prompted.

"It wouldn't really be fair, would it?" Al said. "Isn't everything based on equivalent trade?"

Granny's entire face seemed to grin. "Alchemist's son, right?" Just as Alphonse was about to ask how she knew, she continued. "Only met a few alchemists myself, but they all seemed quite attached to the 'equivalent trade' idea. If you ask me, I say it's rather ridiculous. Life's not alchemy, is it now?"

Alphonse fumbled with words for a moment, before admitting "no. But it's only right to help. I mean, you _did _let me come and live with you."

"And equivalent trade would mean I would need to live with you," Granny pointed out. "But I'll settle for having you help Winry with her chores." She gave him a warm smile, before gesturing towards the open door. "Now you kids should go and play, I'll let you know when dinner's done."

- - -

Delightedly, Winry scattered her equipment across the noticeably worn wooden floor of the living room. Gears, wire, felt, a key, scissors, glue, a black felt-tip pen, and a few miscellaneous tools Alphonse had never seen before. "You're really supposed to sew the felt, but I like to glue it because it's faster. I really only like making the inner mechanism that makes it work," Winry explained, as she passed Alphonse a sheet of paper covered in scrawled writing and childish drawings . Instructions, he realised.

"How did you learn to make them?" Alphonse asked, curiously. "Did Granny show you?"

Winry shook her head, and then grinned proudly. "I bought a couple from the village shop and took them apart to find out how they worked!" she replied. "I taught myself how to make the mice, and then I made the frog by myself. Oh!"

She dug into the tin she'd brought from her bedroom, and pulled out a little green frog-shaped toy. "Look," she said. She placed a key into its back and wound it, and then placed it on the floor, where it hopped across the room. "I had to try a few times to get it to work," she admitted, "but I really like it!"

Alphonse watched the frog hop a few times more before it stopped. "Wow," he said. "I'm not sure I could do that."

"Sure you can!" Winry assured. "Just follow my instructions, and you'll be fine!"

The boy looked at the instructions again. While it certainly appeared that she knew what she was doing, Winry's handwriting was barely readable, and the instructions were written with no sense of order. _'Has she tried to teach anyone else?' _he wondered. The diagram looked like it was more informative than the instructions themselves. "Maybe I could use alchemy to make it?" he suggested. _'As long as I know where all the parts go, that could work…'_

"Use what?" Winry inquired.

"Alchemy," Al repeated. "Haven't you met any alchemists?"

Winry shook her head.

"Well, I can show you," Alphonse said, smiling. It looked like he'd get a chance to show Winry something new, at least. It hopefully meant he was not as boring a companion as he suspected. "Can I draw on the back of this?"

"No!" the girl responded, as though the idea were outrageous, and she snatched the sheet of instructions back to hold it to her chest. "This is important."

Al couldn't hide the disappointed look on his face. "But Winry, I need something to draw on. I can't draw on the floor, Granny wouldn't like it."

Winry looked thoughtful a moment, before she grinned and darted out of the room. Moments later, she returned - Alphonse's letter to his father in her hand. "Draw on the back of that!" she said, passing the letter to Al.

Al was silent a moment, before he sighed. "Alright," he said, reluctantly, and placed the letter on the floor with its blank side facing up. He took the felt-tip and drew a simplistic transmutation circle on the sheet while Winry leaned over curiously. _'This ink's going to seep through,'_ he thought with mild annoyance. This was a letter! Would his father mind there being an alchemic array on it?

This particular array was one of the first he'd learned - Edward had taken a book, _'An Introduction to Alchemy'_ from their father's collection. They learned soon after that it had in fact been written by the man, and many of the pages were littered with notes that suggested that he intended to revise it.

The two had studied it quite intently, and though Ed took a far greater interest in putting alchemy into practice than he did, Al found this one array to be useful, especially when it came to broken toys. It didn't alter the materials much at all, it just moved them around.

"What's that?" Winry asked, when he had finished.

"A transmutation circle," Alphonse replied. "Can you put all the parts I'll need on it?"

Winry had a confused frown on her face, but did as she had been asked. "Now what?"

"Watch," Al said, as he placed both hands on the circle, frowning in concentration. _'I hope I remembered how it goes together,'_ he worried. _'Maybe I should have looked at the instructions again.'_ There was a glow for a moment as the reaction took place, and once it was faded there was a little green felt mouse with a hole in its back where a key should go.

The girl stared in shock. Al noticed that she had stood and retreated to the wall. "Wh-what was that?" she asked, eyes wide. He couldn't tell whether it was fear or amazement. "Magic?"

Al felt rather confused. "No, it's _alchemy_. I said so just a minute ago. Can I have the key to see if it works?"

Winry fidgeted a moment, before taking back her former position on the floor and handing the clockwork key to Al. Alphonse smiled nervously, and wound the key in the little mouse's back. He set it on the floor.

There was a pause. "Oh," Alphonse said, disappointed. "It doesn't work… I must have made it wrong."

Winry picked the mouse up off the floor, and pulled off the felt cover. "Look," she said, before proceeding to explain exactly why it wasn't working and suggesting he try again. By the time Granny called them for dinner, Den had exhausted himself by chasing the multiple little clockwork mice across the living room floor.

- - -

_I wanted to write a letter as soon as I arrived, but that would have been rude. Winry showed me how to make a toy mouse. I didn't really understand how to do it, so I used alchemy to make one. Winry never saw alchemy before because there are no alchemists in Rizenbul, so it surprised her. She says she does not want to try it because she likes to make things with tools._

_We wound up the toy mice and played with the puppy, Den. He really liked chasing them, but he became tired and we had to let him sleep._

_Granny made hotpot for dinner. It was really nice. I made sure to thank her and helped Winry wash the dishes and tidy the kitchen while Granny went to do some work. She is a mechanic working with automail. It sounds difficult._

_I wish Ed was here. It would be more fun if both of us were playing with Winry and Den. Ed would be showing off, and complaining about being taken out of Central, because he really wanted to go to that Grammar School. I know I can't change what happened, but I still wish I could._

_I hope you are well,_

_Alphonse_

Al checked over the letter for any mistakes; he put great effort into his Amestrian, and didn't want the letter to be spoiled by poor spelling or sentence structure. He smiled when he felt it was to his satisfaction, and placed it inside an envelope. He would send it tomorrow morning. It would probably take a week to receive a reply, considering the distance between Rizenbul and Central.

Granny would probably come to tell him it was time for bed soon. Alphonse gave his surroundings a quick scan. It was very different from his and Edward's shared bedroom in Central, and rather larger, but he was sure it was not the only reason this room did not feel like a bedroom at all to him. It was so plain - the only real colour in here was from the quilt Granny had provided him with.

He quietly murmured reassurances to himself, as he finally began to unpack the suitcase. _'This feels so strange… but it's not that bad. It's warm and comfortable in here, and Granny and Winry are nice, good people. It just doesn't feel _right._'_

_

* * *

_**End Chapter 1**

If you're interested, this story is _illustrated_. The picture for this chapter will be posted on my fic journal tomorrow (6th September), after my final edit of the text. My fic journal is located at LiveJournal, under the username kiwiwolf. Or you could go to my homepage link in my profile. I'm pretty proud of my illustrations, coincidentally - I believe them worth at least a look.


End file.
